


Visit

by mistr3ssquickly



Series: Redemption [8]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, welcome to the middle of a larger story i haven't written entirely oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:01:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: Leia learns something interesting.





	Visit

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows a chapter _I haven't even begun writing yet,_ so if it doesn't make a tonne of sense ... well, that's why. I'm ... sorry?

The report isn’t long.

Leia skims it once, pulling the important information with the ease of long practice, then goes back and re-reads it, every word of it, confirming her understanding of the facts contained in the charts and narrative before her. A skill her father taught her when she was just barely old enough to read books without pictures in them, intended to help her review legislation quickly and effectively without making errors that could cost her votes or confidence or face.

She sets the datapad aside, along with the aching melancholy at the thought that her father would be proud of her, proud to see her using what he taught her to protect herself and the people she loves, and crosses into the kitchen, chewing at the inside of her lip as she fills two of Luke’s teacups with the dark rum Han brought back from a recent night of gambling. It’s not the best liquor she’s ever had but it’s better than the some of the others Han’s used to ease himself to sleep after a long day of doing things he refuses to tell her about but she sees all the same in his nightmares, feels good going down when she takes a sip from her cup, the promising blanket of numbness not quite reaching the sparking manic excitement she doesn’t dare trust, the thrum of dark, toxic emotion churning deep in her belly as she crosses back through the flat to the bedroom, drinking the rest of the rum in her teacup in two swallows before shrugging out of her tunic and trousers and joining Han in bed.

He’s quick enough to wake when she leans down and covers his cock with her mouth, groggy and clumsy as he paws at her head, tangling his hand in her hair, but he comes to full hardness steadily enough, groaning with pleasure as she takes him in deep, swallowing around him on each downward push. She could make him come like this, and without difficulty, Han’s love of her mouth, and Luke’s, almost equal to Luke’s love of having his mouth on either of them, but it’s not what she wants, not today, the ache of desire swelling between her legs as Han goes slick in her mouth pushing her from him before he’s gotten too far along, the frown that tugs at his features when she stops sucking him melting quick into a grin as she straddles him and pushes him up into her, angling him so that he rubs her just right as he slides in deep, her cunt tight around him.

He lies still beneath her, tense and watching with the kind of intensity she can feel brushing against her skin as she moves, his hands resting on her hips, feeling the rhythm of her, for only a few minutes before he cracks and starts to move with her, pushing up hard each time she presses him down, his eyes going unfocused and slipping closed as he tightens his hands on her, forcing a tighter rhythm. Never one to lie back and let her or Luke make him feel good, the greedy pirate stealing what pleasure he can wherever he can, Leia’s cunt squeezing around him as their fucking turns competitive, her strong will clashing with his stubbornness. It’s good, though, rough and messy and animal, has Han swearing and breathing hard just as the muscles in her legs are starting to burn, has him pushing her back onto his cock for the last breathless moments before he arches under her and comes, his greater strength holding her still on him as he spends himself inside her, making soft, broken sounds of pleasure in the back of his throat as she moves on him as best she can, wringing the last aftershocks from him.

“Damn,” he breathes when it’s over, his eyes sliding open but not focusing well, his lips cool where he’s been panting when Leia leans down to kiss him, brushing his hair back where it’s clung to the sweat gathered on his brow. “God _damn,_ Leia.”

Leia smiles, the pleasure of seeing a man like Han Solo completely undone at her touch a point of pride she’s never grown weary of enjoying, the crooked grin he gives her when he focuses well enough to see her expression so honest and sweet that she can’t help but lean down and kiss it from him, slow and easy.

He’s not one to be messy in bed most of the time, noticeably more squeamish around his own fluids than Luke’s ever been, but he doesn’t hesitate that afternoon to push her gently out of his lap and roll her onto her back beside him, reaching down and pushing his fingers into her, the pad of his thumb rough against her clit. His touch is sloppy where he’s out-of-it still from his own orgasm, maybe not even entirely awake from his nap just yet, which means he’s not as gentle as he usually knows to be when touching her, but he’s with-it enough to move with her when she shifts, rocking her hips under him, keeps his hand where it needs to be when she finally gets him positioned just right, moaning softly as he fingers her.

She twists towards him when she feels herself starting to crest towards orgasm, breathing out on a low moan when he leans in and mouths at her throat, working his hand on her faster. Eager for her to come for him, biting down hard at the curve of her shoulder when she starts to tense around his fingers, grasping for the sweet swell of completion, his skin warm and sticky with sweat when she grabs at him, curling her nails into his side as she climbs to a breathless, gasping orgasm, Han growling against her throat as he works her through it, kissing her like he’s pleased with himself when she shudders and falls back against the pillow, panting.

“Helluva way to wake up from a nap,” he murmurs against her collarbone when she doesn’t have the breath to kiss him for more than a few seconds, trailing his hand up to rest over her hip, making a mess of her under the thin sheets.

“I’m glad you approve,” she says.

Han chuckles and kisses her on the mouth once before collapsing back in a loose spill of limbs, every inch the gorgeous man she’s never been able to resist, despite the caustic clash of their personalities. He’s at his most appealing to her when he’s like this, loose and open and happy and relaxed, never one to resist reveling in the moments he can snatch away where he’s safe and happy and comfortable and loved. He _glows_ with satisfaction when he's at ease like this, her sense of him through the Force throwing into glaring detail just how on-edge he normally is, long years of fighting to survive imbuing him with an animal tension he honors her by releasing when they’re together, fully relaxed in a way he doesn’t allow himself to be, even with Luke, despite how deeply she can tell he loves her brother.

A feather of jealousy brushes her consciousness at that train of thought, leaving in its wake conjecture about the other partners Han’s had over the years, the nameless men and women who’ve enjoyed his passions in bed, who knew him when he was younger, wilder. Less cautious and wary, his skin smoother where now it’s marked across with scars like the stars showing early navigators the way across the silent darkness of the galaxy.

“Do you have any children, Han?” she says after a long moment, the pleasant fuzz of orgasm waning enough for her musings to meander into a different train of conjecture, the logical result of Han’s sexual history drawing back to the fore of her thoughts her original motives for taking him to bed in the middle of the day.

At her side, Han breathes a short, startled laugh. “Do I _what?”_

“Have any children,” Leia repeats. She turns her head to look at him, her hair scrubbing against the pillow, probably tangling itself into knots as she does. Takes in the furrow of his brow, the look of sleepy incredulity he’s angled towards her and laughs, despite herself. “What?”

“That’s my line,” Han says. “The hell kind’a question is that?”

Leia shrugs, turning back to look up at the ceiling, the bright patterns painted in the clay more beautiful than they’ve been all the nights she’s lain awake staring up at them, before. “It’s not _that_ strange to think you might,” she says. “You were hardly inexperienced when you first slept with me.”

Han snorts. “Yeah, no, you didn’t take my innocence or anything,” he says, and Leia doesn’t need to be looking at him to feel him rolling his eyes. “Always been careful with you’n Luke, though, haven’t I? Far as usin’ protection goes. I ain’t _stupid,_ you know.”

“We could debate _that_ to the end of our natural lifespans and never reach a consensus,” Leia tells him, “and I would hope you’d be careful. You’re what, thirty standard years, now? Thirty-one? Old enough to know better, certainly.”

“Comin’ up on thirty-three,” Han corrects, “and don’t like thinkin’ about it either, thank you very much.”

“My point being that you were old enough by the time you met me, and Luke, to know better than to have an affair unprotected,” Leia says, “but I was young and stupid once, as I’m _absolutely_ certain you were. It’s not much of a stretch, then, to think that as a younger man, lacking the experience you have now, you might’ve—”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Han interrupts. “I knew better than to—look, you got a reason for bringin’ this up, or do you just like ruining a perfectly good mid-day fuck?”

Leia pushes herself up into a seated position, folding her legs before her and finger-combing her hair into some semblance of order, the strands staticky already, despite the sweat from her coupling with Han. “I sincerely doubt I’ve lost my touch with you so badly that something as small as an uncomfortable question could ruin our afternoon together,” she says.

“Ain’t doin’ much to let me enjoy it,” Han grumbles, but he reaches out and drags his fingertips down the length of her spine as he does. “Fine. Since you're so curious. I learned young how bad it is to leave kids strewn across the galaxy, learnin’ from their moms to hate the men who fathered ‘em and didn’t bother to stick around after. That's what my old man did to me, had plenty'a bad shit waitin’ for him if he'd ever bothered to come back to see how I turned out. Which he didn't. So no, I was never stupid enough to run the risk’a doing that myself. _Ever.”_ He shifts, the bed frame creaking under them. “That good enough for you?”

“More than,” Leia says. “Thank you.” She nods towards the bedside table. “There’s a shot of rum over there, if you want it.”

“You got more questions that’re gonna _make_ me want it?” Han wants to know, his fingers stilling mid-stroke on her back.

Leia smiles despite herself. “Possibly.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearing the fourth cycle, I think.”

Han curses under his breath. “Too hot out there for me to bolt out’a here in the buff and make it to shelter without gettin’ roasted, then. Damn. Any chance you’d hold off askin’ me weird stuff ‘til I’ve got my trousers on? Got my boots handy, maybe? Give me a fair shot at gettin’ away?”

He winks at her when she looks at him over her shoulder, pushes himself up to reach for the teacup of rum when she smiles back, but he drinks the rum down like he was only half-joking about running away from her questions. She waits for him to finish and set his cup aside, sighing as he licks his lips and lies back down.

“All right,” he says. “Do your worst.”

Leia traces a circle around one of the freckles on her right calf, the motion meditative, centering. “If you _had_ accidentally fathered a child,” she says, slow to get the words out around the uncertainty slipped in around the edges of the time Han’s made her wait, giving her the chance to second-guess her own thoughts, “and you’d—well. No. If you thought it was _possible_ you’d fathered a child, and you tracked them down, would it—” She stops, her words tangling around each other in her mouth, weighted under the thought that she should have been the one to have the second shot of rum, not Han, as she draws breath to try once again, releasing it in a gusting sigh when her thoughts fail again to congeal into coherence. 

Han pushes himself up. “I’m usually pretty good at figurin’ out what you’n Luke are trying to say when you get all tongue-tied,” he says, “but I’m not havin’ much luck this time ‘round.” He nudges her shoulder with his own, frowning. Concerned. “Spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

Leia sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. She’s tired, suddenly, exhausted as if she’s run a mile in the sands cradling their flat. “I ran a blood test on Va—on the Jedi. Against my own blood, and Luke’s,” she says. “Testing for genetic similarities. Paternity.”

“Uh-huh,” Han says.

Leia looks at him, holding his gaze unblinking, his apprehension tangible against her mind, his entire being braced, ready to not like whatever it is she says next. “He isn’t related to either of us. The Jedi. No relation to either Luke or me. Not even distantly. Aside from our species, we have no more in common than we have with you, or any other human being, for that matter.”

“Uh- _huh,”_ Han says, slowly. Leia sighs.

“Which means,” she says, “that he’s either been lying to Luke about being his— _our_ —father, or he’s lying about being Darth Vader. And I’m not sure which option I would dislike more. Or less.”

Han’s mouth is open. He closes it, breathing out a long sigh through his nose. “And here I thought you were gonna tell me you were pregnant and tryin’ to figure out if I was the father, not Luke,” he says.

“No, nothing that catastrophic,” Leia says, her attempt at dry humor falling flat the second the words leave her lips. She waves it away. “Luke’s going to be devastated.”

“Devastated? Why?”

Leia tries to reel in the condescending look she can feel forming across her face. She isn’t successful. “You’ve seen how he is around—him. His long-lost father, reclaimed from the Dark Side, working with him to liberate his homeworld.”

“Well yeah,” Han says, “but—”

“Luke’s risked— _everything,_ really, for this,” Leia says. “His own life, his place with the Alliance, his relationship with us—all because he believed Vader was his father, because he was so dedicated to saving him. How could he _not_ be devastated to learn the truth?”

Han frowns, quiet as he works her words over in his head. “Got a point there, I guess,” he says. He shrugs. “So don't tell him.” 

“Don’t—”

“—tell him. Yeah. Don’t see why he’d _need_ to know. Do you?”

Leia opens her mouth, then closes it again, Han’s words bringing her up short. “No,” she says, slowly, “but _not_ telling him feels like lying. He told me the truth—what he _thought_ was the truth, anyway—about our being related, and about Vader, as soon as he could. It seems only right to extend him the same courtesy.”

“Sure. But the argument could be made that telling you before he had proof was like lyin’ to you,” Han says. “Don’t see how it matters anyway, in all honesty. Yeah Luke cares that he thinks he's reunited with his old man, but that's 'cause he _cares_ that he's related to the guy. Or thinks he is, anyway. Paternity's—I mean, you fuck and a kid happens, and that’s got biological ramifications, sure, but it ain’t like Vader raised either of you. You’re always sayin’ Senator Organa’s your dad, and Luke’s got his uncle to thank for raisin’ him up to be how he is. When you can trick him into talkin’ about his family, anyway. What’s it matter if the Jedi rotting away on the medical barge is related to you or not? He’ll be dead soon enough anyway, far as I can tell. You keep what you know to yourself, let Luke think he got to meet his old man and bring him back to the Light or whatever. I won't say any different, not that I think I'll be asked. No harm in that, is there?”

“What if he’s an imposter?” Leia says. “If he’s a stand-in for the real Darth Vader, brainwashed to believe that he’s the real deal, that he just _happened_ to father the leaders of the rebellion that irreversibly gutted the Empire? What if he was _meant_ to be rescued by Luke, to distract him—and us—from some plot going on in the shadows? To turn Luke's good nature against him? Against us?”

Han frowns at her for a moment, then climbs out of bed, picking up his trousers from the foot of the mattress as he leaves the room. He’s wearing them when he comes back a moment later, has the bottle of rum she left out on the table in the kitchen in his hand, pouring some into his teacup and handing it to Leia before taking a generous swallow for himself, straight from the mouth. “You’re good at comin’ up with worst case scenarios,” he says, settling at the edge of the bed. “Anyone ever tell you that? Should sic you on our enemies with that kind of psychological warfare, because lemme tell ya, it’s—”

“—a speciality of mine, actually,” Leia says, “and I’ve been trained to use it exactly as you’re about to joke I should. That aside, though, you have to admit, it’s—”

“Terrifying. Yeah, it is.”

Leia sips her drink. “I was going to say ‘a possibility we can’t afford not to take into consideration,’” she says, “but yes, it’s a frightening prospect.”

“Is fakin’ it something he could do without Luke noticing through the Force?” Han says, after taking another drink from the bottle. “If we tell him—if _you_ tell him—what you’ve found out and have him do his Jedi thing on the other guy, d’you think he could tell if somebody’s been in there, messin’ around with his memories? Tell if he’s—I dunno, _different_ somehow from the real thing? He’s fought Vader before, been around him enough to ... what, sense him, or whatever it is he does.”

He takes another drink, gesturing with the bottle, the rum sloshing noisily as he does. “You have, too, now that I’m thinkin’ about it. More’n Luke has, actually. Hell, d’you think _you_ could tell? Now that you know the truth?”

The thought of even _trying_ to pry into the powerful presence she runs from in her nightmares nearly every night is enough to turn Leia’s stomach, the mouthful of rum she swallows in attempt to quell the uplift below her ribs doing little more than worsen the sensation. “I don’t know,” she says, pushing the thought firmly from her mind. “Maybe. But I’m not sure I could tell if he figured out what I was doing and tried to manipulate my thoughts. Make me believe what he wants me to believe.” She shrugs. “I’ve barely been trained. Luke’s the one who’s applied himself to the study. He’d be the better choice for something like this.”

“Gonna have to get him in on it, then,” Han says. “Damn.” He takes another drink from the bottle, gesturing with it as he swallows. “Or, better yet, mix the two. You could try it on your own first, see what happens. Get Luke in on the action after you’ve done what you can. See what he finds, compare that with what you think you’ve found.”

He starts to lift the bottle of rum to his mouth for another drink, but the sound of Luke keying in his lock code for the front door stops him, tension snapping through him like a whipcrack, for all that his outward affect doesn’t change. “Speak’a the devil,” he mutters, putting the bottle to his lips once again and drinking deep.

Luke’s dusty and flushed when he comes into the bedroom, the wind Leia heard whipping through the compound earlier having apparently pushed his cloak aside as he traveled across the sands. He stops mid-step into the bedroom when he sees her sitting in bed, fully nude, Han beside her in little more than his trousers. Shy to be walking in on them, nevermind how often he’s seen them naked together in bed, _been_ naked together with them in bed, his face too flushed from being out in the midday heat for him to go pink in the cheeks, his shielding too proficient for Leia to sense him through the Force, but his body language speaks volumes for him, discomfort all but radiating from him as he mumbles _sorry_ and turns like he’s going to leave, stopping only when Han says his name and holds out the bottle of rum to him.

“You look like a man who could use a drink,” Han says, wagging the bottle to and fro hard enough to slosh the rum around inside.

Luke doesn’t take the bottle. “Is everything okay?” he says, looking at Leia with uncomfortable intensity.

“Could be better if you were in bed with us,” Han says, giving the bottle another shake.

Luke ignores him, his focus resting entirely on Leia, still. She nudges Han in the side and hands him her empty teacup, her legs stiff as she climbs out of bed and crosses the room to kiss Luke on the cheek. “Let me clean up,” she says, “then we can talk.” She casts a quick glance over her shoulder at Han, then adds: “And let him pour you a drink, even if it’s just water. He’ll pout, otherwise.”

She means it as a joke, and Han’s _hey!_ is tinged with laughter, but Luke doesn’t lighten up, nodding once and stepping aside, out of her way, her gaze touching her skin as she crosses the flat to the ‘fresher to clean up. 

Conjecture ties her stomach into a series of loose knots as she bathes, her familiarity with Luke’s abilities to see and hear things through the Force vague and anecdotal at best, doing nothing to help her guess at what he might already know, what he might be able to guess. He’s never been one for subtlety, wearing his emotions like a flashing sign over his head over the years she’s known him, something Han’s teased him mercilessly for, especially on the rare occasions Luke’s been bored enough to play cards with the man, losing horrendously almost every single time. If he knows—or suspects—what she’s found out, she would know just from looking at him, she decides, but he _does_ know something’s wrong, and lying to him, even without the threat of him figuring out the sharade through the Force, feels—

She shivers despite the warm tingle of her skin, the sweat already gathering at the back of her neck as she combs and re-braids her hair, drawing a slow, calming breath as she closes her eyes and goes through the meditative exercises Luke taught her early on in their friendship, back when he was still learning, himself, all wide-eyed excitement bringing a warm flush to his cheeks as he showed her what he’d discovered, eager for her to try it out, too. It won’t keep him out of her thoughts, she knows, not if he really wants to find out what’s going on, what he inevitably sensed from her through the Force earlier, but it helps her focus, helps her push aside the jumble of thoughts too loud and raucous for her to even begin to sort through, the alcohol in her system helping and hindering her efforts by equal measure.

Luke is seated in the main room of the flat when she comes out, a glass of water three-quarters empty at his knee, his legs folded up in his preferred meditative pose. Han sits at his side in his favored chair, sprawled in an affect of calm so forced it’s hard to look at, the lascivious grin he angles at Leia when she walks past nude easily one of the worst false expressions she’s seen him adopt. 

“We did something that’s got this one all spooked up,” he says when she comes back, dressed, and takes the chair opposite Han’s. “He’s convinced there’s somethin’ getting ready to blow up on us.”

Leia sighs. “When is there not?”

“We both felt it,” Luke interjects over Han's rueful snort, “Anakin and I. You haven’t been that upset since—since I told you about him. We were— _I_ —was worried.”

Leia doesn’t even try to suppress the look of disgust she can feel curling her upper lip, the thought of Vader touching her mind with his, even unintentionally, making her feel filthy in a way no ‘fresher could ever clean. She pulls her left leg up to tuck under her right thigh, letting the stretch of tensed muscle distract and center her, pulling some of her focus from her feelings. “It’s nothing as serious as you’re making it out to be.” she says.

“You don’t want to talk about it, though,” Luke says.

“It’s—” She sighs, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I was working on something unrelated to our efforts here and came across something upsetting. That’s what you sensed. Han was helping distract me from it when you came in.” She drops her hand to her lap and looks Luke in the eye. “I’ll share it with you once I’ve had a chance to think it over, gather my thoughts.”

“You told Han about it already,” Luke says, his voice taking on the petulant edge he’s not yet outgrown. Likely won’t, she thinks, affection for the frustrated young man looking up at her twisting tightly around her frustrations with his whining.

She looks at Han, who puts both hands up. “Don’t ask me where he got that idea,” he says. “I didn’t tell him that. Hell, I didn’t even _know_ you were upset. First I knew anything was going on, I was wakin’ up to getting my cock sucked.” He winks at Luke. “Not a bad way to wake up from a nap, all said.”

Luke frowns at him. “I felt the same from you that I felt from Leia,” he says, “after you'd—once you were finished. The same feeling, like your stomach dropping from a fall. It wasn't as strong as Leia's, but it was similar enough.” He glances at Leia, them back to Han. “Please don't lie to me. I'm not an idiot.”

“Not as smart as you think you are, though,” Han says. “Jumpin’ to conclusions only makes you look smart if you stick the landing.”

“Then what—”

“I had a pregnancy scare, if you must know,” Leia cuts in, the lie forming for her even as she’s giving it voice. “I thought—it couldn’t be you, we’ve not been together recently, but Han and I have. I would assume you felt my worry as I was checking to see if I had evaluated my symptoms correctly, then Han’s when I told him about it.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “After we’d celebrated my incorrect assumption. Which, as Han said, he didn’t know about until it was all over.”

Luke stares at her, his mouth hanging open a little. He closes it after a second and pushes at her mind, not the gentle insinuation she’s come to recognize, this sensation rough and sour with mistrust, and it’s likely the first time she’s ever been grateful to have been born with such a fiery temper, the mental shove she gives him for the intrusion enough to make him crumple on himself a little, muttering _sorry_ as he drops his gaze to the floor.

“It wouldn’t be _that_ bad if you were pregnant, would it be?” he says when he looks back up, frowning. “Not bad enough for what I felt, I mean.”

Han snorts. “I’m takin’ that as a compliment,” he says.

“Why?” Luke says. When Han answers him with an incredulous look, he clarifies: “I mean, why would you take it as a compliment if it was enough to affect you like it did, earlier?”

“Why’s everybody wantin’ to know my thoughts on this today?” Han says. “First Leia, now you. I ain’t interested in being a father, but I’m even less interested in gettin’ a woman pregnant and not stickin’ around to help out with the kid. That spell it out for you well enough?”

Luke shrugs and doesn’t look convinced, but he leaves Han to glower, looking at Leia again instead. “And you’re sure that you aren’t?” he says. “Pregnant, that is?”

“I am, yes,” Leia says.

“What made you think you were?”

Leia sighs. “I told you already, I’d really rather not talk about it right now,” she says. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You picked up on an overreaction and overreacted in turn. Nothing worth wasting our breath discussing to death.”

“But—”

“Please, Luke?”

Luke shuts his mouth, but it doesn’t stay shut for more than a few seconds. “Anakin said he thought it was something to do with him,” he says when he opens his mouth again.

“Well that’s ego for you,” Han says.

“He’s afraid of hurting everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve here,” Luke says. “If someone suspects that—”

“—he’s paranoid, just like the rest of us,” Leia interrupts, “and not without reason, I’ll give him that. Given our closeness, yours and mine, it’s not surprising that you can tell when I’m upset, and since you were near him at the time, it makes sense that he was able to feel your response to me. She looks Luke in the eye. “Unless my understanding of these things is off.”

Luke shakes his head. “No, that’s—that makes sense,” he says. “I think. I can ask him. He knows more about this than I do.”

“Don’t you dare,” Leia says.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of his business what we do together, the three of us.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“Telling him any of what I just told you would be more than I can stand to even _consider,”_ Leia says. “Don’t. Please.”

Luke holds her gaze like a challenge, his lips pressed into a thin line. “All right,” he says, finally, “I won’t.”

“Thank you,” Leia says.

She stands, crossing the small room to the chaos of documents and notes she abandoned on the table less than an hour earlier, Luke’s gaze following her like a hand between her shoulderblades, demanding and annoying in equal turn. He isn’t trying to get into her head, but she knows him well enough to know the temptation’s there, Luke never one to ignore any asset he has at his disposal when he feels trapped or threatened, something he’s picked up from Han, maybe, or maybe just his human nature, nurtured into strength by his formative years spent on such a harsh, unforgiving planet. It makes having him near, usually such a comfort to her, feel like a threat, like sweat trickling over sandburn, her nerves pricking hot adrenaline when she hears Luke stand, his footfalls silent as he crosses the flat to the kitchen, his drinking glass empty as he cleans it and returns it to its place.

“I know that it’s selfish of me,” she says when he comes over and sits at the table, not touching her work but looking at it, giving it more attention than he’s ever done before, “but I don’t suppose you and Han would give me some space this evening?”

Luke’s expression is carefully blank when she looks at him, but he’s surprised and irritated by her request, maybe a little bit hurt. “Yeah,” he says, after just a second's hesitation too long, “of course.”

“Thank you.”

Luke nods, hesitating again before pushing himself to his feet, forcing a smile before walking around the table, his back to her as he says _come on, let's go_ to Han, all but dragging the man out. She's left with a suffocating silence, the emptiness of the flat around her a painful relief.

The report’s still up on her datapad when she unlocks it, glaring at her like the stomach-dropping truth she’s believed for months that have stretched like years across her skin, her true paternity given to her like a slap across the mouth and ripped away from the brother she’s loved as far more in what will amount to little more than a collection of heartbeats across their lives, the relief she feels stronger than it _should_ be, blood-relation never something she’s cared about too deeply, never valued beyond its cultural values on worlds different than her own.

She feels the tickle of Vader’s presence barely touching the base of her mind just as she’s thinking to put the datapad aside and walk through some of Luke’s meditation techniques, her thoughts too scattered for her to concentrate on anything other than the concerns at hand. “Stop that,” she says aloud to the bare clay wall opposite her, treating it to a cool, steady look, relatively sure that Vader won’t be able to see her expression, but hoping he’ll get the idea all the same.

The touch recedes immediately, but the message remains: he can look into her thoughts just as easily as Luke could, perhaps more easily, if the fancy takes him, and she'll have no way of blocking him. The thought is there that he's doing it out of defensiveness for Luke, trying to get the information she's denied his son, but she shoves _that_ aside, rolling her eyes. Any humanity she sees in Vader is a careful, premeditated strategy, and falling for it isn't something she intends to do.

There's nothing but her own doubts and misgivings pushing at her thoughts when she settles herself and closes her eyes, breathing deep the dry, bitter air of Tatooine, stretching out along the pulsing brightness of the Force. She can sense Luke, and Han with him, the two of them focused and still, taking on the animal alertness they adopt whenever they're outside the relative safety of their shared flat. Closer by, she can sense the other inhabitants of their cluster of dwellings, some just starting to wake as the first sun sets, others easing into the end of the day, weariness a comfort in the face of rest, of respite. She can't sense Vader, even when she tries, her brow furrowed as she concentrates, no hint of him, his presence familiar to her senses now that she knows he's what she's felt in her meditations, in her dreams. Instead she feels nothing nothing but a hollow emptiness where she's expecting him to be, his caution in keeping himself hidden from her, bringing a chill up her spine.

Luke will respect her wishes and stay out of her head, she knows, his confidence that he can get the truth from her directly not unfounded, her affection for him a weakness she doesn't at all mind. Vader, on the other hand, will show her no such mercy, no such respect, and if he knows that she knows, that Han knows, that their knowledge puts at risk whatever long con he's playing—

Her stomach lifts on a wave of nausea she barely manages to contain by sinking into the Force with desperation she's certain Luke wouldn't like, always cautioning her to go slowly, to be gentle, for all that he well knows that isn't her way of approaching anything in life. It works, which is all she cares about, no concerned probing pressed against her mind from Luke in response to her upset, no insinuation from Vader drawn like a scavenger to the smell of blood. She keeps her focus on the Force for three long, deep breaths, allowing her thoughts to swirl uncontested in her mind, their presence dulling like an aged sunburn the longer she waits, giving rational thought the chance to triumph. 

She has no defense on her side but the power of knowing what Vader doesn't know, she decides after what feels like a very long time, her back and neck stiff with forced stillness, the balance of keeping her thoughts from overwhelming her checked by the discomfort of her physical form. A lesson Luke hardly needed to teach her, his stories of his months on Dagobah enough to share the wisdom of that particular practice. Gifted with the rare solitude from her lovers, she could go to Vader and tell him, she thinks. Confront him with his own lies and see what she can sense from him. She'll be able to get to Luke and Han before he can, physically limited as he is, and if he tries anything with Luke through the Force, Han will be there to act as a grounding presence, as a barrier to Luke doing anything rash. Maybe. 

She hates it, but it's the best she's got, dread heavy in her legs as she rises and pulls on her cloak. She considers taking one of Han’s spare blasters with her, but she's seen their inefficacy against Vader, knows from sour experience that approaching an enemy armed can mute discussions of peace before the first word is uttered. She feels naked without it, vulnerable as she leaves the flat and takes the second ‘speeder out across the scarred expanse of the Wastes she's learnt almost as intimately as the craggy nothingness surrounding her first home on Tatooine, the thrum of the motivator rumbling in cadence with the adrenaline surging through her like a heartbeat.

Vader's ship is just as it was the first time she saw it, well concealed among long-discarded scrap collected in an ugly heap where the natural landscape has formed refuge for it, the sands blown across each piece of metal and plastisteel, the desert digesting them at its leisure. She maneuvers the 'speeder around to the space behind Vader's ship, just as Luke did, worry that it won't be there when she needs it again soothed under the thought that she'll hardly be gone long, the chances that a roaming scrapper will see it, or her, diminishing as she reaches out to sense any presence nearby and feels nothing, the heat of day hoarded in the sands and the promise of dry, empty chill bleeding down from the darkening sky her only companions as she approached the entry hatch and keys in Luke's code.

Vader is expecting her, no surprise registering on his face when she comes down the short corridor to his resting place, the machines dormant the last time she saw him all alive and humming, now, connected to the systems that keep him alive. He looks smaller than he did the first time she saw him aboard his ship, his mask removed and prosthetics dotted across with the wires and cables charging and servicing them. It should leave him looking vulnerable or weak, she thinks, but he doesn’t, the power surrounding him like the glow of the sands after dark as intimidating as a serpent posed in deathly stillness, ready to strike without warning.

“You’ve come alone,” he says once she’s come fully into the room, taking refuge in the darkest corner she can find.

“Yes,” she says. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Vader shifts, pushing himself up to an upright seated position with no small amount of effort. “I would be honored,” he says. He gestures to a chair half pushed in under the small table at the opposite side of the small chamber. “Sit, please.”

The table is closer to him than the spot she’s chosen, but not much, the weariness she feels whenever she travels any distance on Tatooine making her legs feel rubbery already, at odds with the adrenaline she can feel curling under her skin. She keeps her focus trained on Vader as she crosses the room, careful to keep her posture controlled, commanding, her back straight as she pulls the chair away from the table and settles on it, her feet planted firmly on the metal plated floor.

The pale skin around Vader's eyes crinkles as he watches her, the servos under his chair whirring as he rotates to face her fully, watching her without blinking. His eyes are paler than she’d remembered them being, bearing none of the warmth she sees in Luke’s, the scarring stretched across his scalp thrown into harsh relief by the lights overhead.

“You have grown strong,” he says when she doesn’t break the silence, considering him as he considers her. “Not only in the Force.” He draws a slow breath, the effort of it pinching his expression in what might be pain, might be concentration. Leia can’t tell. “Your mother would be proud.”

Anger lashes a whip of hatred through her, scalding hot and impossible for her to contain, her heart-rate picking up with it, knocking against her lungs. “My mother was always proud of me,” she says, “as was my father. They raised me well, and saw to it that I would be prepared to survive on my own, should they and all they had built were taken from me.”

Vader draws a breath, staring at her without blinking. “Bail and Breha Organa,” he says, finally, cool and even. “I knew them, during the war. Bail, better than Breha. He was a good man. Brave beyond description, and deeply committed to his people.” He draws another slow breath. “He was a close confidante of your mother’s. Supported her often in her political efforts.”

Emotions tumble like wet refuse through Leia’s thoughts, too many for her to name, her stomach curling tight as she focuses her breathing, consciously keeping her expression neutral. Of _course_ he knew her parents, she chides herself. He knew Obi-Wan Kenobi, trained at his side before his fall to the Dark Side, before his long years of serving at the side of the man the galaxy originally knew as Senator Palpatine from Naboo, her biological mother’s homeworld. He had a relationship with her biological mother intimate enough for him to believe that he’d fathered children with her, after all, unless—

Vader tips his head to the side, considering her without touching her mind, the scarred skin of his brow throwing sharp shadows across itself as he frowns. “You have something to say to me,” he says, “but you are keeping it to yourself. Why?”

 _Because I want to hurt you with it as badly as I can without it hurting me in the process,_ Leia doesn’t say, but Vader reacts to her anger and hatred all the same, surprise registering across his features before he can rein it in. A habit he’s not curbed in the years he’s worn a mask, she thinks idly, the notion ridiculous in its clarity, the painfully _human_ vulnerability it paints across him at odds with the monster she knows him to be. “I was raised to choose my words wisely and carefully among comrades,” she says. “Even moreso before an enemy.”

“I won’t pull it from you,” Vader says, unfazed by the label _enemy._ “Come to it in your own time.”

Leia’s stomach twists again, but with pure disgust this time, Vader's gentle tone a poison in her throat. “I hardly need your _encouragement,”_ she says, standing and crossing the four steps separating them. She thrusts the datapad out, watching Vader’s eyes move from her face to the datapad, then back again as he reaches out to take it from her, slow and controlled as if he suspects it’s a trap. He reads the report on the screen, skimming over it quickly before going back and reading it in detail, his entire face pinched in confusion when he looks back up at her.

“What—”

“I ran a DNA test on our blood,” Leia says, “mine and Luke’s. And yours. We’re related by blood, Luke and myself, as we were told we were. Full siblings. But you—” She nods down at the datapad. “I ran a comparison of your blood against ours. It shows that you are no relation to us. _Either_ of us. Whatever—or whoever—gave you the idea that you were our father—they lied to you. And you lied to Luke. You’re not his father, nor are you mine.”

Vader looks down at the datapad in his hands once again, but he’s not reading it, his eyes flicking over the words and charts printed on the screen, like a panicked animal scurrying in circles before a predator. He’s gotten himself under control when he looks back up at her, holding out the datapad for her to take, but it’s forced, not terribly convincing. “I see,” he says. “This is a surprise.”

His calm affect is good, but not great, cracks showing in it that Leia _wants_ to pick at, like the edges of a scab covering an insect bite. “Who told you that you were Luke’s father?” she says, taking the datapad and focusing her senses on the man seated before her, the ugly tangle of emotions she can feel just under his cold, wearied affect exhausting, confusing. “Was it the Emperor?”

“No,” Vader says. “He confirmed it when I told him what I suspected. He believed it to be true, as I did.”

“Then who—”

“Obi-Wan,” Vader says. “He said—” He stops himself, a hot bubble of emotion welling up in the Force as his eyes widen, his breathing going unsteady for only a second before he looks at Leia once again, slow to regain control. “He _suggested_ the relation,” he says, finally.

“Why would he do that?” Leia says.

Vader shakes his head. “Luke is strong in the Force. Moreso than the Emperor was, moreso even than I am. If he were to believe that I was his father, if that belief were to make the war personal for him—” He looks Leia in the eye. “Surely you can see the strategic benefit there.”

She can, easily, but the thought of Obi-Wan—the man of whom her father had spoken so fondly, so often, the man she’d believed to be her only hope in what she believed would be her final hours—lying to Luke just for political gain sits so ill with her that she pushes it aside, hating it almost as much as the fear she can feel growing around it like poisoned mold.

“Well,” she says, “you've certainly benefited from the illusion.”

Vader dips his chin in a nod. “I have,” he says, “though I can take no credit for the way things have gone. The good of the past months has been Luke's doing. And yours.”

“I’m well-aware of that, thank you,” Leia says. “For your information, Luke was talking about coming back to Tatooine to put an end to the slave-trade _years_ ago. Long before he knew anything about you beyond the fact that you'd had his entire family killed, then murdered Obi-Wan right in front of him.”

Vader draws a slow breath, the sound thin and rasping against the close walls of the room. “Luke has overcome much in order to see his goals to fruition.”

“We’ve all made sacrifices in the name of what we believe in,” Leia tells him.

“Belief,” Vader echoes. “A dangerous motivation, as your revelation this afternoon has illustrated.”

He’s either trying to get the upper hand in the conversation or push her temper; either way, disgust wells like bile in Leia’s throat. “You believed what you wanted to believe,” she says. “Luke believed what he was manipulated to believe. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. Luke hardly wanted you to be his father. Unlike you, wanting to meet your children. Your son, anyway.”

 _That_ hurts him, for whatever reason, his voice quiet as he says, “Yes. That was a desire I carried with me, despite my master’s training to the contrary, and carry with me even now.”

Leia narrows her eyes at him. “You—” she begins, but she stops herself, instead flicking through the files on her datapad, her hand shaking a little as she looks for the results she’s seeking. “All Senators’ genetic information was saved in the archives,” she explains as she works. “Your beloved Emperor was so focused on the Jedi that he didn’t bother to expunge the records of the democracy he destroyed.” She can feel him watching her as she holds out the datapad to him once again. “If you’re hoping to meet Senator Amidala’s children, then you’ve done that. We’re a genetic match with her, both Luke and I. She was our biological mother. Without a doubt.”

Vader hasn’t even _looked_ at the datapad before the whipcrack of anger touches Leia’s mind, as sharp and hot as broken sandstone at midday, tinged so deeply with anguish that it makes her _ache,_ empathy for the creature suffering before her rising in her throat before her conscious mind can tamp it down, presenting her with thick gratification gone sour before she can consider it.

“I see,” he says, maybe trying to rein in his emotions, maybe not; it’s difficult to tell, just as she can’t tell if his hand is shaking as he hands the datapad back because she’s interrupted his rest or because of the information she’s brought him. She wishes she didn’t care. “Have you told Luke?”

Leia shakes her head. “No.”

“Will you?”

“I—” she starts, but uncertainty stops her. “He has a right to know the truth.”

“You hesitate to tell him,” Vader says. “Why?”

 _Because the truth has never done anything but hurt him,_ she doesn’t say, and she can’t tell if Vader can hear the thought anyway. “I don’t care for making rash decisions and running into things without first thinking them over carefully first,” she says, and it sounds like her seven-year-old self reciting over dinner the lessons she’d been learning, wanting to impress her parents with how much of a diplomat she’d become over the course of the day. “Luke has been preoccupied with the work he's been doing here. The _good_ he's doing, for the people of his homeworld. Distracting him would be a disservice, both to them and to him.”

“You are afraid to tell him,” Vader says.

“I don’t want to see him hurt,” Leia says. She looks Vader in the eye. “I _won’t_ see him hurt. By you or anyone else.”

Vader draws a slow, even breath, the machine somewhere to his left breathing with him, sighing a soft mechanical whir as he exhales. “You are ... a wonder,” he says, finally, his voice soft. “Untrained in the Force, but powerful in it. Holding it in balance with no—no difficulty. With no training. Without even trying.” His cheeks crease and curl as his mouth bends into a curve Leia doesn’t immediately recognize as a smile, his eyes warm with it, even in the cold light of the ship. “The Jedi would have argued about you for _days,_ had they gotten the chance to meet you.”

“Well, we all know why that won’t happen, don’t we,” Leia says, and it’s petty, _sounds_ petty coming out of her mouth, but she doesn’t have the will to care, even a little bit.

Vader dips his chin in a nod. “Yes, we do,” he says. “Ironic, that the prophecy that led them to accept me into their ranks, to train me in the ways of the Force, so blinded them to what I was becoming that it was too late to stop me before I took away everything they’d—”

“You can’t _blame_ them for your own actions,” Leia snaps.

“No, no I cannot,” Vader says. “And blame isn’t what I intend. I simply—there was a prophecy, though I admit I never spoke with any of them about it at length, so my understanding of it is second-hand and flimsy at best. That a child would be born, strong in the Force, and bring balance to it. The Jedi believed that the child in the prophecy would kill the Sith, eradicate them once and for all. They believed that I was that child.” He looks at her, the earlier warmth in his expression gone. “They were wrong.”

Leia frowns, her logical mind overruling her heart’s desire to take a cheap shot at the man seated before her, clearly open and vulnerable, exposed like a nerve to whatever barb she might choose to voice. “That would hardly balance things,” she says, instead. “Reunification with the Sith would balance the Force. A mutual—not peace, I’m hardly naive enough to believe in that concept, but a—a cease-fire, for lack of a better term. Agreement to stop what fighting they could, rather than escalating it, mixing it with the political wars being fought across the galaxy.”

Vader dips his chin in a nod, his respirator brushing the fabric of his robes as he does. “A concept I’m not sure ever crossed the minds of the men and women who trained me, and certainly did not cross mine until I had turned to the Dark Side and was learning at the feet of a man who cared nothing for balance or peace. Power was his only craving, and he lived and died by it. Reveled in it.”

“And yet you did nothing to work for that balance,” Leia says, anger reasserting itself, the burn of it in her belly a comfort. Safer than the other emotions, ephemeral and fleeting under her skin.

“No, I did not,” Vader says. “I was ... _consumed._ By grief, hatred, regret. My master shared his thoughts with me only as a vehicle to stoke my hatred of the Jedi, my commitment to him, to his cause. He believed, as did I, that we had brought their precious balance to them by wiping them out, leaving only two of us. Unchecked power, seeking to bring order to the universe.”

Leia curls her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. “You _murdered—”_

“Billions,” Vader says, softly. “I have taken more life than you know, Leia. You see glimpses of it in your dreams, in my dreams, the promise of what awaits me when I die, but you cannot imagine, _should_ not imagine, the horrors that I have caused. The suffering. As deep and keen as your own suffering, amplified beyond description.” He flexes his right hand, his breathing audible, labored. “I would ask you to put an end to it, now, but you won’t do it. For all that you’ve hated me, you’ve never been a threat to something as insignificant as my life.”

It’s either a poor attempt at reverse psychology or a pathetic display of self-flagellation; Leia doesn’t care to ponder which. She uncurls her hands and relaxes the tension she’s allowed to wind through her, meeting Vader’s gaze without blinking. “If this is the direction you intend to take the conversation,” she says, “then I have nothing more to say to you.”

“It was just a thought,” Vader says, “though, like you, I have much to think about, in light of what you've told me.” He sighs. “I hope you will come to see me again. I have enjoyed speaking with you.”

Leia opens her mouth to answer him, but no words come, so she turns and leaves, and Vader does not try to stop her, his silence spread like frost around each of her footsteps echoing in the confines of his ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author’s Notes  
Here’s a chapter that’s been kicking around since late February 2018. I wanted to write what came before it (since I already [wrote what comes after it oops](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14395788)) but that is clearly just _not happening,_ so here, have -- something. Hopefully something nice.

I adore Leia, really I do. Of all the characters in _Star Wars,_ she’s easily the smartest, most capable, and most cunning. Writing her is a genuine pleasure, and seeing as I’m that author who usually _cannot_ write women, that’s really something.

I thrive on comments, so if you have a thought about the story, please share it? I do love to hear what folks think of this stuff.


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